What is E911?

Learn more about E911 with our E911 Basics primer below.

9-1-1 Calls

When you call 9-1-1 from your home, your call goes to your telephone provider who sends the call and your home address to the local emergency call center, or a PSAP. (Your home address was provisioned when you ordered telephone service from the telephone company.) The responder at the PSAP then assesses the situation, alerts the closest emergency responders (police, fire dept, etc.) and provides them with information about the call.

The Location Information Problem

In an office environment, your exact location can often be complicated. Different floors, different buildings on campus, different sections per floor. None of this information is relayed to the PSAP or emergency responders. The only information the PSAP sees is the address that was provisioned when telephone service was established. That address is almost never the same location as the call. While you wait for help to arrive, the PSAP could be sending first responders to your company’s billing address and not your actual location.

The RedSky Solution

RedSky’s products, E911 Anywhere® and E911 Manager®, solve these problems. With RedSky’s products you can create detailed location records for every phone in your enterprise and include building, floor, room and quadrant information in the record. When the PSAP gets your 9-1-1 call, they know exactly where you are. RedSky’s E911 Anywhere cloud service is connected to over 6000 PSAPs in the USA and Canada, so no matter where you are, your 9-1-1 call is connected to the local PSAP that can dispatch help to you. Now that mobility is a major driver in today’s business environment, having accurate location data for employees is a necessity.

E911 Legislation

17 States have passed legislation or regulations requiring enterprises to provide E911 for their employees. Typically these regulations require an enterprise to create defined regions so emergency responders know where a call is coming from (i.e. Building, Floor, Room).